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JAMES RYDER RANDALL

( At Twenty-Two )
When Maryland, My Maryland, was written

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND
AND OTHER POEMS

James Ryder Randall

JOHN MURPHY COMPANY

BALTIMORE, MD. NEW YORK

JO*"

• •• •-

• «

rf'A.Vrc-:.-*

TO THE MEMORY

MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

Page

Introduction 11

Maryland, My Maryland 17

Pelham 20

There's Life in the Old Land Yet 22

John W. Morton 24

On the Rampart 28

Memorial Day 31

The Battle Cry of The South 82

The Lone Sentry • 36

At Fort Pillow 38

Our Confederate Dead 42

Placide Bossier 44

Ashes 46

The Unoonquered Banner 46

At Arlington 49

The Oriel Window 66

Anima 69

Eidolon . 61

The Damsel of Mobile 64

The Dying Girl 66

Jamais .. . N . 68

The Cameo Bracelet 70

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Page

The Cobra Capello 72

Why The Robin's Breast is Red 76

Adieu 76

Silver Spring 78

To the Queen of the Wax Dolls 81

Stone Apples 88

Althee 88

Isis 91

Far Out At Sea 95

Flourine 97

Alexandrine 98

Speaking Eyes 101

The Grand Duke 103

My Bonny Kate 105

Elsie Gay 108

The Willow 109

Architecture 112

Marathon 114

Ode to Professor Dimitry .116

Ha! Ha! 119

Sarcastic 122

Madame La Grippe 128

Silhouette 127

Magdalen 131

Keats , 132

Palinodia 134

Malison 136

CONTENTS

Paob

Clay 188

The Unbought Seminole 142

After A Little While 149

The Place of Best 151

Refuge of Sinners 168

Mother and Son 166

The Only Boy 158

Labor and Prayer 160

In Memoriam 162*

Cuthbert In Heaven 164

Sunday Revery 167

La Fete Des Morts 171

Night and Day 178

Lost and Saved 174

Besurgam 179

INTRODUCTION

These poems have been collected and are published
at the request of the many friends of James Ryder
Randall, who died on the 15th day of January, 1908,
in Augusta, Ga.

Mr. Randall was born in Maryland, and, although
circumstances compelled him to live for many years
far away from his native State, he never lost his
intense love for the place of his birth, and it was the
hope of his life, in later years, to close his career in
dear old Maryland.

When he was last in Baltimore, he was persuaded
to surrender to friebds the stray poems, which he
had written, at various times, that they might be
published in book form.

His great poem, which Oliver Wendell Holmes
declared to be the greatest war song of any nation,

POEMS Of JAMES RYDER RANDALL

"Maryland, My Maryland/' constitutes the main
feature of this publication. The circumstances under
which it was penned are thus described by himself :

"In April, 1861, I read in the New Orleans Delta
news of the attack on the Massachusetts troops as
they passed through Baltimore.

"This account greatly excited me. I had long been
absent from my native city, and the startling event
there influenced my mind. That night I could not
dismiss from my mind what I had read in the paper.
About midnight I arose, lit a candle and went to my
desk. Some powerful influence seemed to possess
me, and almost involuntarily I proceeded to write
the song of 'My Maryland. 9

"I remember that this idea seemed to take shape
as music in my brain — some wild air that I can not
now recall. The whole poem was dashed off rapidly
when once begun. It was not composed in cold
blood, but under what may be called a conflagration
of the senses, if not an inspiration of the intellect
No one was more surprised than I was at the wide-
spread and instantaneous popularity I had been so
strangely stimulated to write."

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Randall was, at the time, a Professor of
English Literature and Classics in Poydras College
at Pointe Coupee, Louisiana. While he was, thus,
engaged, poetry was with him a passion and he had
often, in the hours of leisure indulged in the ecstacy
of writing exquisite poetry.

Published in the last days of April, 1861, his war
song fired the Southern heart.

It displays the warmth of youth with the valor
of the soldier, and pleads with his mother State
to vindicate her peerless chivalry. After the war, his
deep religious devotion turned his heart in kindness
to those, who had been on the other side in the
fratricidal strife, and he wrote the beautiful poem
"At Arlington." A devoted friend of Colonel Ran-
dall thus described the circumstances under which
that poem was written. In the hearts of some of his
triumphant foes the gall of bitterness still lingered,
and "on one Decoration Day," so the story goes, "the
graves of Federal soldiers at Arlington Cemetery
were heaped with flowers, and some pious women
strewed a few garlands on the nearby graves of some
Confederate dead. Whereupon, some Northern men,

POEMS OF JAMES EYDEE RANDALL

who saw the loving act, trampled under foot the gar-
lands placed on the "Rebel Sod/ 9

But when the sun rose next morning the flowers
were decking the Confederate graves and this was
how it happened:

Jehovah judged, abashing man:

For in the vigils of the night,
His mighty storm-avengers ran

Together in one choral clan,
Rebuking wrong, rewarding right ;

Plucking the wreaths from those who won,
The tempest, heaped them dewy bright

On Rebel graves at Arlington.

Other poems of rare beauty adorn this little book;
but the grandest of all in spirituality of thought, in
sublime religious faith and in beseeching supplica-
tion is that of "Resurgam :"

Banished from thee! where shall I find

For my poor soul
A safe retreat from storms that blind

Or seas that roll?
Come to me, Christ, ere I forlorn,

Sink 'neath the wave,
And on this blessed Easter morn

A lost one, save!

INTRODUCTION

This collection of poems is, now, sent forth in the
hope of the author's friends, that it may receive a
large share of favor from the public for the benefit of
the family of the deceased author and poet, Jambs
Rydbb Randall.

Baltimore, February 7, 1908.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said of Maryland, My
Maryland: "My only regret is that I could not do
for Massachusetts what Randall did for Maryland"

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND

The despot's heel is on thy shore,

Maryland!
His touch is at thy temple door,

Maryland !
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle qneen of yore,

Maryland! My Maryland!

Hark to a wand'ring son's appeal,

Maryland !
My mother State ! to thee I kneel,

Maryland !
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,

Maryland! My Maryland!

[17]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Thou wilt not cower in the dnst,

Maryland !
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,

Maryland !
Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust, —
And all thy slnmberers with the just,

Maryland! My Maryland!

Gome ! 'tis the red dawn of the day,

Maryland !
Come with thy panoplied array,

Maryland !
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
With Watson's blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,

Maryland ! My Maryland !

Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong,

Maryland !
Come ! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,

Maryland !
Come to thine own heroic throng,
That stalks with liberty along,
And gives a new Key to thy song,

Maryland! My Maryland!

[18]

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND

Dear Mother ! burst the tyrant's chain,

Maryland !
Virginia should not call in vain,

Maryland !
She meets her sisters on the plain —
"Sic semper!" 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back again,

Maryland! My Maryland!

I see the blush upon thy cheek,

Maryland !
Bnt thon wast ever bravely meek,

Maryland !
But lo ! there surges forth a shriek
From hill to hill, from creek to creek —
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,

Maryland! My Maryland!

Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,

Maryland !
Thou wilt not crook to his control,

Maryland !
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the blade, the shot, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,

Maryland! My Maryland!

[19]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

I hear the distant thunder hum,

Maryland !
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and dram,

Maryland !
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza ! she spurns the Northern scum !
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll
come!

Maryland! My Maryland!

PELHAM

Just as the Spring came laughing through the strife,

With all its gorgeous cheer ;
In the bright April of historic life,

Pell the great cannoneer.

A wondrous lulling of a hero's breath,

His bleeding country weeps ;
Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death,

Our young Marcellus sleeps.

Nobler and grander than the Child of Borne,

Curbing his chariot steeds;
The knightly scion of a Southern home,

Dazzled the land with deeds.

[20]

PELHAM

Gentlest and bravest in the battle's brunt,

The Champion of the Truth ;
He won his banner in the very front

Of our immortal youth.

A clang of sabres 'mid Virginian snow,

The fiery pang of shells —
And there's a wail of immemorial woe

In Alabama dells.

The pennon droops that led the sacred band

Along the crimson field;
The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand

Over the spotless shield.

We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face,

While 'round the lips and eyes,
Couched in their marble slumber, flashed the grace

Of a divine surprise.

Mother of a blessed soul on high !

Thy tears may soon be shed —
Think of thy boy with princes of the sky,

Among the Southern Dead.

How must he smile on this dull world beneath,

Favored with «wif t renown ;
He with the martyr's amaranthine wreath

Twining the victor's crown !

[21]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

JOHN W. MORTON

Ringed with flame and sore beset,
Where gunboat and rifle fire met ;
Where cannon blazed from water and land
Upon the Donelson Southern band,
A gallant lad of nineteen years,
A stranger to tremor and to fears,
Stood by a battery piece and shot
The first shell in that crater hot.

His captain, Porter, smitten down
Where all the volleyed thunders frown,
Shouted, when borne in pain away :
"John, don't give up that gun, I say !
"No ! not while a man is left," replied
The lad, in the flush of martial pride ;
And he kept his word to the utter end,
While a man could live in that river bend.

[24]

JOHN W. MORTON

"No prison for me", grim Forrest said,
And thousands followed where he led.
But other thousands remained because
They bowed to Buckner's word and laws.
Whelmed by the girdling Northern men,
They marched to the captive's dismal den,
And the lad who fired the first gun past
Into that solitude sad and vast.

A few months more, and the daring boy
Breathed the air that the free enjoy.
A few months more, and he gayly went
Where dauntless Forrest pitched his tent.
Saluting the hero, he quickly gave
To the South's own "bravest of the brave"
A paper that said he was to be
The Wizard's Chief of Artillery.

A derisive smile swept over the face
Of the stern commander, in his place.
"What !" he growled, "are you to wield
Command of my guns in war's fierce field?
Nonsense, boy, go grow a beard !"
And this was what the stripling heard.

[26]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

But presently the Wizard's brow
Grew calm. "I'll try yon, anyhow",
He said, and from that setting snn
Morton and Forrest were as one.

Nigh fonr tremendous, bloody years,

Full of combat, smiles and tears;

O'er miles of land in battles grand,

Forrest and Morton went hand in hand.

With sword and pistol the Wizard slew,

While Morton's guns mowed men in blue.

If mortal man could ever have freed

The South from the f oeman's grasp and greed,

That man was Forrest, but we see

It was not destined so -to be. ■ s*

ii.

Long years have gone, the grass is spread

Above the bivouacs of the dead.

The mighty Wizard's wand is still

Like his heart; but from every Southern hill,

And mount and stream and vale bedight,

With sun and moon and star alight,

He lives in glorious deeds, alway,

Baffling the onset of decay.

[26]

JOHN W. MORTON

The lad who made the cannon roar

Survives on Life's tumultuous shore.

His locks are silvered, but his brain

Burns with heroic throbs amain.

Gentle and kind, but valiant yet,

Forgiving, he cannot forget

The Cause he fought for, with his mate

Immortal, whatsoe'er its fate;

While from his great dark eyes there gleams

The orient of remembered dreams.

And now the old bard's final rhyme
Invokes a blessing of Easter time,
Upon his people and home and race,
Like manna-dew of heavenly grace.
With higher aims, in war's surcease,
Be thou allied with the Prince of Peace,
And never, henceforth, forget to be
"Soldier of Him who died for thee."

[27]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

ON THE RAMPART

On Sumter's rampart, that sweet eve,

I heard the vesper bugle play
In chorus with the ocean's heave,

All in the golden prime of May.

On either side, the level lands
Swam seaward gray and serpentine;

The billows burst in corsair bands
Against their shield of rock and pine.

Aloof, beyond the sullen bar

Crouching, the black armada rides —
Afront the vulture ships of war,

Brooded the giant Ironsides.

The fortress guns scowled from their lair
Along the sentry's bristling beat ;

While on the sultry wave, aglare,
Back frowned the gaunt and baffled fleet.

[28]

ON THE RAMPART

Above her, in the glittering day,
The white-winged banner's battle stars.

Crisping the bosom of the bay,
Bold Moultrie stands with all her scars;

Amid the island, in repose,

The casual breeze at last grew still;
And, through the haze of twilight, rose

The tower of Secessionville.

The patient moon clomb up the sky
Forever on the sun god's trail —

The saddest, loveliest thing on high,
And like Oenone's passion pale.

The signal fires wink through the dark

Aleft and right, as rays may reach
Around the red and feverish arc
Of muffled batteries on the beach.

A hallowed radiance, calm and grave,
Gilded the city's storied spires,

Where watch the beautiful and brave,
Where sleep the Carolinian sires.

[29]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

On Sumter's rampart, that sweet night,
Leaning beside the shattered wall,

Thy gentle face, so fair and bright,
Kept me, dear love, within thy thrall.

I turned from wrecks of storm and strife
To thee — within some distant home;

I felt that all my fate and life
Were thine, wherever I mnst roam.

A glory has come o'er my days
In dreaming noblest dreams of thee;

Beyond the rampart, how my gaze
Went proudly o'er the Southern sea!

And dreams like mine can still defy

Even the tempest of distrust;
I know that they sh^all never die

Because they are not of the dust.

Dear love ! though dreams may wither here,
They are upgathered from the sod,

And we shall see them reappear
In the long summer time of God !

[30]

MEMORIAL DAT

Noblest of martyrs in a glorious fight!
Ye died to save the cause of Truth and Right
And though your banner beams no more on high,
Not vainly did it wave or did ye die !

No blood for freedom shed is spent in vain;
It is as fertile as the Summer rain;
And the last tribute of heroic breath
Is always conqueror over Wrong and Death.

The grand procession of avenging years
Has turned to triumph all our bitter tears;
And the cause lost, by battle's stern behest,
Is won by Justice, and by Heaven blest.

Dark grew the night above our sacred slain,
Who sleeps upon the mountain and the plain ;
But darker still the black and blinding pall
That whelmed the living in its lurid thrall.

But taught by heroes, who had yielded life,
We fainted not, nor faltered in the strife;
With weapons bright, from peaceful Reason won,
We* cleaved the clouds and gained the golden sun.

[31]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

And so today the marble shaft may soar
In memory of those who are no more;
The proudest boast of centuries shall be,
That they who fell with Jackson rise with Lbb !

THE BATTLE CRT OP THE SOUTH

Arm yourselves and be valiant men, and see that we be in
readiness against the morning, that ye may fight with these
nations that are assembled against us, to destroy us and our
sanctuary.

For it is better for us to die in battle than to behold the
calamities of our people and our sanctuary. — Maccabees 1.

Brothers ! the thunder-cloud is black,

And the wail of the South wings forth ;
Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack,

And the Vampires of the North?
Strike ! ye can win a martyr's goal ;

Strike ! with a ruthless hand —
Strike! with the vengeance of the soul
For your bright, beleaguered land !
To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help,

And a craven is he who flees —
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,*
And the God of the Maccabees !

•The surname of the great Maccabees.
[32]

THE BATTLE CRT OF THE SOUTH

Arise ! though the stars have a rugged glare,

And the moon has a wrath-blurred crown —
Brothers ! a blessing is ambushed there

In the cliffs of the Father's frown ;
Arise ! ye are worthy the wondrous light

Which the Sun of Justice gives —
In the caves and sepulchres of night
Jehovah the Lord King lives !

To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help,

And a craven is he who flees —
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!

Think of the dead by the Tennessee
In their frozen shrouds of gore —
Think of the mothers who shall see

Those darling eyes no more !
But better are they in a hero-grave

Than the serfs of time and breath,
For they are the Children of the Brave,
And the Cherubim of Death !
To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help,

And a craven is he who flees —
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees!

[33]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Better the charnels of the West

And a hecatomb of lives,
Than the foul invader as a guest,

'Mid your sisters and your wives —
Bnt a spirit lnrketh in every maid,

Though, brothers, ye should quail,
To sharpen a Judith's lurid blade,
And the livid spike of Jael !
To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help,

And a craven is he who flees —
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees !

Brothers ! I see you tramping by,

With the gladiator gaze,
And your shout is the Macedonian cry

Of old, heroic days !
March on ! with trumpet and with drum,

With rifle, pike, and dart,
And die — if even death must come —
Upon your country's heart
To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help,

And a craven is he who flees —
For ye have the sword of the Lion's Whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees !

[34]

THE BATTLE CRY OP THE SOUTH

Brothers ! the thunder cloud is black,

And the wail of the South wings forth ;
Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack,

And the Vampires of the North?
Strike ! ye can win a martyr's goal,

Strike ! with a ruthless hand ;
Strike ! with the vengeance of the soul
For yonr bright, beleaguered land !
To arms ! to arms ! for the South needs help,

And a craven is he who flees —
For ye have the sword of the Lion's whelp,
And the God of the Maccabees !

[35]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

THE LONE SENTRY

Previous to the first battle of Manassas, when the troops
under Stonewall Jackson had made a forced march, on halt-
ing at night they fell on the ground, exhausted and faint.
The hour arrived for setting the watch for the night. The
officer of the day went to the General's tent and said :

"General, the men are all wearied and there Is not one but
is asleep. Shall I wake them?"

"No," said the noble Jackson. "Let them sleep, and I will
watch the camp tonight"

And all night long he rode around that lonely camp, the
one lone sentinel for that brave, but weary, body of Virginia
heroes. When glorious morning broke, the soldiers awoke
fresh and ready for action, all unconscious of the vigil kept
over their slumbers.

'Twas at the dying of the day,

The darkness grew so still
The drowsy pipe of evening birds

Was hushed upon the hill.
Athwart the shadows of the Tale

Slumbered the men of might,
And one lone sentry paced his rounds

To watch the camp that night.

[36]

THE LONE SENTRY

A grave and solemn man was he,

With deep and somber brow ;
The dreamful eyes seemed hoarding up

Borne unaccomplished tow.
The wistful glance peered o'er the plain

Beneath the starry light,
And with the murmured name of God

He watched the camp that night.

The future opened unto him

Its grand and awful scroll —
Manassas and the Valley march

Game heaving o'er his soul,
Richmond and Sharpsburg thundered by

With that tremendous fight
That gave him to the angel host

Who watched the camp that night

We mourn for him who died for us

With one resistless moan,
While up the Valley of the Lord

He marches to the Throne !
He kept the faith of men and saints

Sublime and pure and bright ;
He sleeps — and all is well with him

Who watched the camp that night

[37] '

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Brothers! The midnight of our Cause

Is shrouded in onr fate —
The demon Goths pollute our halls

With fire and lust and hate !
Be strong, be valiant, be assured —

Strike home for Heaven and Bight!
The soul of Jackson stalks abroad

And guards the camp tonight

AT POBT PILLOW

You shudder as you think upon
The carnage of the grim report,

The desolation when we won
The inner trenches of the fort.

But there are deeds you may not know
That scourge the pulses into strife ;

Dark memories of deathless woe
Pointing the bayonet and knife.

[88]

AT PORT PILLOW

The house is ashes where I dwelt
Beyond the mighty inland sea.

The tombstones shattered where I knelt
By that old church upon the lee.

The prowling fiends who came with fire
Camped on the consecrated sod,

And trampled in the dust and mire
The holy tenement of God !

The spot where darling mother sleeps,
Beneath the glimpse of yon sad moon.

Is crushed, with splintered marble heaps,
To stall the horse of some dragoon.

And when I ponder that black day,
It makes my frantic spirit wince;

I marched — with Longstreet — far away,
But have beheld the ravage since.

The tears are hot upon my face,
When thinking what bleak fate befell
The only sister of our race —
A thing too horrible to tell.

They say that ere her senses fled,
She rescued, of her brothers cried,

Then feebly bowed her stricken head,
Too good to live thus — so she died.

[39]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Two of those brothers heard no plea,
With their proud hearts for ever still —

Guy, shrouded by the Tennessee,
And Bertram at the Malvern Hill.

But I have heard it everywhere,
Vibrating like a mystic knell ;

Tis as perpetual as the air
And solemn as a funeral bell.

By scorched lagoon and murky swamp,
My wrath was never in the lurch ;

I've killed the picket in his camp,
And many a pilot on his perch.

With steady rifle, sharpened brand,

A week ago, upon my steed,
With Forrest and his warrior band,

I made the hell-hounds writhe and bleed.

You should have seen our leader go
Upon the battle's burning marge,
Swooping, like falcon, on the foe,
Heading the gray line's iron charge.

All outcasts from our ruined marts,

We heard th' undying serpent hiss,
And, in the desert of our hearts,
The fatal spell of Nemesis.

[40]

AT POET PILLOW

The Southern yell rang loud and high,
The moment that we thundered in,

Smiting the demons hip and thigh,
Cleaving them to the very chin.

My right arm, bared for fiercer play,
The left one held the rein in slack ;

In all the fury of the fray,
I sought the white man, not the black.

The dabbled clots of brain and gore
Across the swirling sabers ran ;

To me each brutal visage bore
The front of one accursed man.

Trobbing along the frenzied vein,
My blood seemed kindled into song —

The death-dirge of the sacred slain,
The slogan of immortal wrong.

It glared athwart the dripping glaives —
It blazed in each avenging eye —

The thought of desecrated graves
And some lone sister's desperate cry!

Wilmington, April 25, 1864.

[41]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

OUR CONFEDERATE DEAD

Unknown to me, brave boy, bnt still I wreathe
For you the tenderest of wildwood flowers;

And o'er your tomb a virgin's prayer I breathe
To greet the pure moon and the April showers.

I only know, I only care to know,
You died for me — for me and country bled;

A thousand Springs and wild December snow
Will weep for one of all the Southern Dead.

Perchance some mother gazes up the skies,
Wailing, like Rachel, for her martyred brave —

Oh, for her darling sake, my dewy eyes
Moisten the turf above your lowly grave.

The cause is sacred, when our maidens stand
Linked with sad matrons and heroic sires,

Above the relics of a vanquished land,
And light the torch of sanctifying fires.

[42]

OUB CONFEDERATE DEAD

Your bed of honor has a rosy cope,
To shimmer back the tributary stars;

And every petal glistens with a hope
When Love has blossomed in the disk of Mars.

Sleep ! On your conch of glory slumber comes
Bosomed amid th' archangelic choir,

Not with the grumble of impetuous drum,
Deep'ning the chorus of embattled ire.

Above you shall the oak and cedar fling
Their giant plumage and protecting shade;

For you the song-bird pause upon its wing
And warble requiem ever undismayed.

Farewell ! And, if your spirit wander near
To kiss this plaint of unaspiring art —

Translated, even in the heavenly sphere,
As the libretto of a maiden's heart.

[43]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

PLAGIDE BOSSIER

Ah, friend ! in the tender College time

No evil deed could stain thee,
And now 'mid the combat's iron chime,

In purity they've slain thee.
Sans penr et sans reproche to live,

Sans peur the foe defying —
Sans penr et sans reproche we give

Thy epitaph when dying.

When the Southern bullet sang the knell

Of the butchering invader,
Then — then triumphantly he fell,

Our spotless young Crusader;
With the loud hurrah and the dauntless tramp

Of the charging Creole yoemen,
He fell where the Cherubim encamp,

With his face to the flying foemen.

The blood moon guides its torch of night

Through the smoke envolumed valleys,
And the hillocks tell where the reddest fight

Shook the quick, convulsive vollies;
In the foremost phalanx he shall rest

His head in the dust declining,
The rifle shielding the soldier breast —

The cross on the saint-heart shining!

[44]

ASHES

The Spring will come with its ebullient blood.

With flush of roses and imperial eyes;
A vein of strength will throb along the flood —
Banners of beauty toss the pillared wood
When birds of music anthem to the skies.

And man prowls forth to mar thy gentle ways,

With sword and shot and sacrilegious hand ;
Thy reign is fallen upon demon days,
We peer at thee althrough a gory haze,
Weeping and praying for our stricken land.

O Land! O Land! of benignant South!

The Great High Priest approaches to thy brow,
Anointing it with ashes; let thy mouth
Rebel not, nor thy heart be filled with drouth —

The hand will raise thee up that smites thee now.

Ash Wednesday, 1865.

[45]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

THE UNCONQUERED BANNER

"A Lost Cause!" If lost, it was false; if true, it is not
lost. If the Cause is lost, the Constitution is lost; the
Union, denned by it is lost ; the liberty of the States and the
people, which they both at first and for half a century
guarded, are lost." — Henry A. Wise.

"Yet, Freedom yet, thy banner, torn though flying,
Streams, like a thunderstorm, against the wind."

— Byron.

.The sad priest-singer, in his dread despair,

When our war-trumpets ceased their charging blare,

Wailed, in melodious numbers, o'er the South,

Her righteous Cause crushed at the cannon-mouth.

He bade us fold our banner and for aye,

Because its night had come and not one ray

Of hope remained to gild its glorious head,

And that it typified the hopeless dead.

[46]

THE UNCONQTJEBED BANNER

The peerless poet of that desperate age
Wrote an immortal lyric, but the rage
Of the aggressive section is no more,
And thus our Southern flag, from shore to shore,
Emerges like an eagle from its sleep
To woo the sun, and, in its heart to keep
The never-dying principle of Bight,
Surviving every fierce, unequal fight

Men die, but principles can know no death —
No last extinguishment of mortal breath.
We fought for what our fathers held in trust ;
It did not fall forever in the dust.
Our f oemen sought to make us worse than slaves
And envy all who sleep in hero-graves ;
They failed at last to do the deed they meant —
They failed in trying God to circumvent.

And well for them they failed, for, in the end,
Their fate and ours must ever interblend,
If we have Caesar, so must Caesar be
With them in fullest perpetuity.
If they have empire and the sordid ban
Of Shylock and the money-changing clan ;
The South is blameless ; for she holds in fee
The stainless swords of Washington and Lee.

[47]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDAIX

There was scant glory in oar overthrow —

Not Valor did it, but a brutal blow.

Five hundred thousand Hessians and a horde

Of blacks and Tories broke the Southern Sword.

Shut from the sea, o'erwhelmed upon the land,

We fought the battle to a final stand.

But the Great Cause, outlasting all debates,

Lives in free union of unfettered States.

Now, let our Banner, symbol of the Right,

Kiss every wind in its unconquered might ;

Let the glad spirit of the poet-priest

Hover above this grand Reunion feast

To watch our Banner, from the grave of strife

Rise with the glory of a new-born life ;

Twined with the ancient flag, o'er land and main,

And wed to deathless liberty again.

[48]

AT ARLINGTON

On the day that the graves of the Federal soldiers burled
at Arlington were decorated, In 1869, a number of ladles
entered the cemetery for the purpose of placing flowers on
the graves of thirty Confederates. Their progress was
stopped by bayonets, and they were not allowed to perform
their mission of love. During the night a high wind arose,
and In the morning all the floral offerings that had been
placed the day before upon the Federal graves were found
piled upon the mounds under which reposed the thirty Con-
federates.

The broken column, reared in air

To him who made our country great,
Can almost cast its shadow where
The victims of a grand despair,
In long, long ranks of death await

The last loud tramp, the Judgment-Sun,
Which come for all, and, soon or late,
Will come for those at Arlington.

[49]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

In that vast sepulchre repose

The thousands reaped from every fray ;
The Men in Bine who once uprose
In battle-front to smite their foes —
The Spartan Bands who wore the grey ;
The combat o'er, the death-hug done,
In summer blaze or winter snows,
They keep the truce at Arlington.

And almost lost in myriad graves,

Of those who gained the unequal fight,
Are mounds that hide Confederate braves,
Who reck not how the North wind raves,
In dazzling day or dimmest night,

O'er those who lost and those who won ;
Death holds no parley which was right —
Jehovah judges Arlington.

The dead had rest; the Dove of Peace

Brooded o'er both with equal wings;
To both had come that great surcease,
The last omnipotent release
From all the world's delirious stings.
To bugle deaf and signal-gun,
They slept, like heroes of old Greece,
Beneath the glebe at Arlington.

[80]

AT ABLINGTON

And in the Spring's benignant reign,

The sweet May woke her harp of pines ;
Teaching her choir a thrilling strain
Of jubilee to land and main,
She danced in emerald down the lines.

Denying largesse bright to none,
She saw no difference in the signs
That told who slept at Arlington.

She gave her grasses and her showers
To all alike who dreamed in dust;
Her song-birds wove their dainty bowers
Amid the jasmine bnds and flowers,
And piped with an impartial trust;
Waifs of the air and liberal sun,
Their guileless glees were kind and just
To friend and foe at Arlington.

And 'mid the generous spring there came

Some women of the land, who strove
To make this funeral-field of fame
Olad as the May-God's altar-flame,
With rosy wreaths of mutual love —
Unmindful who had lost or won,
They scorned the jargon of a name —
No North, no South, at Arlington.

[51]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL.

Between their pious thought and God
Stood flies of men with brutal steel ;
The garlands placed on "Rebel sod"
Were trampled in the common clod,
To die beneath the hireling heel.
Facing this triumph of the Hun,
Our Smoky Caesar gave no nod,
To keep the peace at Arlington.

Jehovah judged — abashing man —

For in the vigils of the night,
His mighty storm-avengers ran
Together in one choral clan,

Rebuking wrong, rewarding right;
Plucking the wreaths from those who won.

The tempest heaped them dewy-bright

On Rebel graves at Arlington.

And when the morn came young and fair,

Brimful of blushes ripe and red,
Knee-deep in sky-sent roses there,
Nature began her earliest prayer
Above triumphant Southern dead.
So, in the dark and in the sun,
Our Cause survives the Tyrant's tread,
And sleeps to wake at Arlington.

[52]

POEMS

SENTIMENTAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
PART SECOND

Beginning with "The Oriel Window", ending with
"Resurgam 1

THE ORIEL WINDOW

I pray in the country church, alas!

With missal and mind contrary;
And in spite of the hymn and the blessed Mass,

In spite of my Ave Mary,
My fancies are drowned in the faces around,

In spite of my Ave Mary !

The bluffs, the breeze, the bulwark trees,
Are grand and glad and holy yet;

The river as proudly seeks the seas
As it did in the days of Joilet —

It's wave-lips stirr'd with the babble of a bird
As a psalm and a psalter for Joilet

[55]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

And then nprolled from the rafter's mold,

Come the dear ones, the departed —
The fair and old 'neath the marigold,

The bold and the broken-hearted —
Till I shudder to think how we rabble on the brink

Of the early broken-hearted.

In mystic trance of my old Romance,

I let all my sorrow and sin go;
Forgetting the graves as they glance and dance

Down — down through the ghastly window —
With column and cross and banners of moss,

Down — down through the Oriel Window.

A purple band from the Phantom Land,

Come the idol-gods I cherished,
And lo ! they stand by a throne of sand,

With palsied brows and perished —
And scoop from the shore of the sea no more

The shells of the Past and Perished.

But from those shells ring passion bells,

Till my soul from its sacred duty
Is ravished along with an earthly song,

But a song of love and beauty,
Till the air is aglow with lustrous hair

And dark-eyed songs of beauty.

[56]

THE OBIEL WINDOW

She kneels in a nook by the dusty choir,

With aspect lost and lornful ;
My breast is gored with spears of fire

To see her looking so mournful —
Ah, 'tis not meet that one so sweet

Should ever be moody and mournful.

She tells, I wist, the beads on her wrist,

With a gentle, lyrical motion ;
And she seems in a mist when the Eucharist

Is soared for the people's devotion;
While a glittering crown for the head bowed down

Is the meed of her dear devotion.

Have you come in the guise of Paradise

Our heart-troth to dissever?
In tears, for the lonesome, bitter years,

Would you woo me back forever?
Oh, speak, love, speak what your sad eyes seek,

And win me back forever!

Both overthrown, we both have known
How the chains of mortality clank ill —

But tonight, tonight a vow we'll plight,
To make our wild hearts tranquil ;

While the flambeaux shine over thine and mine
Untroubled, untortured and tranquil.

[57]

POEMS OF JAMES EYDEE RANDALL

She kneels in a nook by the dusty choir,
Shakes the bloom from my dream-mimosa,

I rash to the nook in the choir to greet
The Mater Dolorosa!

Nought, nought was there but a sculptured prayer
Of the Mater Dolorosa.

No more in a trance of my old Romance
Shall I let all my sorrow and sin go ;

But I'll join the graves as they glance and dance
Down— -down through the ghastly window,

With column and cross, and banners of moss
Down — down through the Oriel Window !

Point Coupee on the Mississippi, 1861.

[68]

ANIMA

Yon came to me in feeble health, the hectic on your

cheek,
Revealed to my adoring sight a body frail and weak;
The lissome form, the glamoured eyes, the spirit un-

defiled,
These, and a glimpse of early death, I saw, beloved

Child!
And if, my guilty heart could dare to make your

heart its goal —
I did not love you for your face — I loved you for

your soul !

Yon came to me a waif of God, unsullied by deceit;
I felt it sacrilege to kiss the shadows of your feet.
And when your thoughts were magnified beyond the

dull terrene,
Me dreamt you sat within the Heaven beside the

Nazarene.
And if my fierce emotions seared your being like a

scroll —
I did not love you for your face — I love you for your

soul!

[69]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Yon came to me like manna dews — like an embodied |

prayer;
Till your imploring accents turned the torrent of

despair.
Yon made me feel the blight of Sin, the majesty of

Love,
And when I clutched an earthly crown, yon merely

glanced above.
Oh, gladly for yon would these hands demand the

beggar's dole —
I did not love you for your face — I loved you for

your soul!

You left me, darling child, before the Promised Land
was won,

And it was hard for me to look upon the living sun.

'Twas no ignoble whim that hoped to make you mine
alway ;

My idol was no frenzy of the perishable clay.

And if I kneel to you no more, save by the church-
yard knoll,

1 have not loved you for your face — I've loved you
for your soul!

[60]

EIDOLON

Ah, sweet-eyed Christ ! Thy image smiles

In its Cathedral cell,
Shrined in the heaven-enamored arms

Of her who never fell ;
And if my phantom eyes implore

A more benignant beam,
'Tis a nepenthe I wonld crave

For a memorial dream !

Dear Leonie ! here did'st thou kneel

That musky summer noon,
As the zephyrs kissed in ecstasy

The dimpled cheeks of June —
As the sunlight drifted o'er thy brow

A golden wave of grace,
Bright blending with the miracles

Of that angelic face.

[61]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Adorably Madonna-like,

By this communion rail,
Thy raptured face, though rich with youth,

Was spirit-lit and pale;
And oh those opulent blue eyes,

Those Meccas of despair —
They, they were glorious Eden-isles

Lost in a lake of prayer!

Saint Leonie ! I saw thee flit

Gazelle-like to the street,
And pure, melodious angels led

Thy dainty, tinkling feet;
My rebel thoughts were petrel-winged,

Attendant upon thee,
Chasing thy loved and lissome shape

As Arabs of the sea.

Long did I love thee, telle Creole,

As Gebirs love the sun,
And in the temple of my soul

Thou wast the eidolon;
Long did I love thee, belle Creole,

Where corsair ^billows rise,
And where the silver planets soar

In unfamiliar skies !

[«2]

EIDOLON

Dark Corcovado ! did I not,

With heart and soul aflame,
Carve on thy broad, monarchal brow

Her wildly-worshipped name —
Watching the homeward ships send by

Before the nimble breeze,
Till memory with them wept away

Beyond the tropic seas!

Years, years had died, and once again

I saw the spires of home;
Then, armed with an nndying hope,

I stood beneath this dome.
But not within the pillared aisle,

Nor by the sacred sign,
Oonld my bewildered eyes behold

The loveliness of thine.

The sad November days had come,

And eagerly I fled
To find thee where the maidens deck

The kingdoms of the dead;
I fonnd thee — yes, I fonnd thee, love,

Beneath the willow tree —
With marble cross and immortelle

And one word — "Leonie \ n

[68]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

THE DAMSEL OF MOBILE

I met thee in the Summer time,

The Summer of my youth —
In days of my melodious prime

And thine unsullied truth.
I met thee when the jasmine buds,

Their velvet locks reveal ;
'Til I loved thee, 'til I loved thee,

Darling Damsel of Mobile!

O shining tresses of the sun !

O eyes of ocean blue !
O dainty feet to nimbly run

Upon the glittering dew !
The cypress breathes its gloomy buds

On all I felt and feel-
Still I love thee! Still I love thee!

Darling Damsel of Mobile !

[64]

THE DAMSEL OF MOBILE

And now the Summer time no more,

The vikings of the rain
Thnnder their turf -steeds on the shore

And prowl the jasmine plain;
The night shade blackens on my brow,

The lightnings gash like steel —
But a Summer heart still throbs for thee,

Darling Damsel of Mobile !

I know, I know that Summer goes,

Like some divine disguise;
I know that Summer rapture flows

By ringlets and blue eyes —
But thou, my Psyche and my soul !

To thee alone I kneel,
With the Summer sunshine in thy hair,

Darling Damsel of Mobile !

[65]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

THE DYING GIRL
Written at the Age of Sixteen

Earth is fading — heaven beaming —
All around grows dark and chill ;

White robed phantoms near me streaming-
Streaming, streaming, streaming still.

Clasp me, mother, clasp me lightly,
Lest yon press the sonl too soon

Prom the form that once shone brightly —
Quenched its brilliance in its noon.

Kiss me, father, kiss me sweetly ;

Smoothe the ringlets from my brow —
Quick — oh quick — for fleetly, fleetly

Speeds life's current from me now !

Where is Harry, where is Harry?

Far from Stella's weeping bed ;
Who to him my words shall carry —

Who shall tell him I am dead !

[66]

THE DYING GIRL

Far away, he thinks me blooming

Into beauty proud and dear,
While before my orbs are looming

Visions of the shroud and bier.

Take these withered lilies to him —
Whence this tremor, whence this gloom?

Show the buds, all drooping, show him —
Let him strew them o'er my tomb.

Icy drops upon me gleaming —
Blower, slower pants my breath ;

Tell me, mother, am I dreaming —
Tell me, am I tasting death?

I am going! I am going!

Far from Harry — f ar from home,
Where eternal trnth is glowing —

Where the meteor angels roam.

The spoiler comes, on flashing pinions,

Thirsting is his eager dart;
Now he beckons to his minions —

Now his keen lance drinks my heart!

Farewell, father ! farewell, mother !

Catch my latest look and sigh ;
Farewell, Harry — more than brother —

God of life! I die— I die!

[67]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

JAMAIS

Early love is swift and golden,

Fond and foolish, too, perchance,
But 'tis haloed by the olden,

Qolden moonlight of romance.
Once it's ripe aurelia bound me,

Brimful with the birds of May;
By the ruins that surround me,

It shall bind no more — Jamais !

Once I felt the blue above thee,

Peri-peopled by thine art;
But 'twas death in life to love thee,

Woman of the diamond heart !
Thou hast sown the sky with ashes,

Made its constellations grey,
While the wind-gust knells and gnashes

Dirge-like to the night — "Jamais ! "

[68]

JAMAIS

I was rich in pure affection,

Passions chastened and alert —
But my rival had perfection

In the opulence of — dirt
He but wooed thee to deceive thee,

Won thee, only to betray;
Shall that shadow ever leave thee?

Never while I live — Jamais!

Time is just, and Fate's surrender

Comes like chrism and myrrh to me.
He is quelled in coffined splendor,

Hearsed in marble mimicry.
I — though Arctic years have chilled me,

Thrust my stature in the day;
But the voice that erst has thrilled me,

Thrills no more — Jamais! Jamais!

Though with purpose unbenighted,
Though with intellect unshorn,

Still my spirit maimed and blighted,
Bleeds beyond its battle morn.

Herbless deserts demon-haunted,
Mark the fury of the fray,

But that spirit, still undaunted,

Bends to thee — Jamais! Jamais!

[69]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Woman ! I shall cling beside thee

As a marvel in thy way;
While I scorn, I shall deride thee

With this requiem of "Jamais!"
Sleep— with adders on thy pillow —

Wake — but spectral shapes of clay,
Flocking from the cloud and billow,

Goad thee with — "Jamais ! " "Jamais ! "

THE CAMEO BRACELET

Eva sits on the ottoman there,
Sits by a Psyche carved in stone,

With just such a face and just such an air,
As Esther upon her throne.

She's sifting lint for the brave who bled,
And I watch her fingers float and flow

Over the linen, as thread by thread,
It flakes to her lap like snow.

A bracelet clinks on her delicate wrist,
Wrought, as Cellini's were at Rome,

Out of the tears of the amethyst
And the wan Vesuvian foam.

[TO]

& THE CAMEO BRACELET

And fall on the bauble-crest alway —

A cameo image keen and fine —
Glares thy impetuous knife, Corday,

And the Lara-locks are thine.

I thought of the wehr-wolves on our trail,
Their gaunt fangs sluiced with gouts of blood;
u 'Til the Past, in a dead, mesmeric veil,
Drooped with a wizard flood.

'Til the surly blaze, through the iron bars,
Shot to the hearth, with a pang and cry —

And a lank howl plunged from the Champ de Mars
To the Column of July.

'Til Corday sprang from the gem, I swear,
And the dove-eyed damsel I knew had flown —

For Eva was not on the ottoman there,
By Psyche carved in stone.

She grew like a Pythoness, flushed with fate,
With the incantation in her gaze —

A lip of scorn, an arm of hate,
And a dirge of the Marseillaise !

Eva, the vision was not wild,

When wreaked on the tyrants of the land —
For you were transfigured to Nemesis, child,

With the dagger in your hand !

[71]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

THE COBRA CAPELLO

"The cobra, though exceedingly venomous, has an aspect
of gentleness and docility/' — Encyclopedia.

Beautiful — yes ! for her basilisk eyes

Gleam out when the features are luscious and mel-
low;
Beautiful — yes ! but adown the disguise,

I detect just a tinge of the Cobra Capello.

And I think Mother Eve looked exactly like this
When she played such a prank on uxorious Adam;

I've a chronic dislike to a serpentine kiss,
And never eat apples in any style, Madam.

Beautiful — yes ! as she paddles her fan

'Mid the bordered lagoons of her robe of white
muslin ;
And the tight little boot taps a quick rataplan,

In a way most piratical, not to say puzzling.

[72]

THE COBRA. CAPELLO

She prates of Tom Noddy, the handsome young goose
Of Don Trombonetti, divine on the flute;

And then, with a smile that's as arch as — the deuce,
Quotes pert panegyrics on somebody's foot!

She'll sing you a hymn or tell you a fib,
(Just one of those cynical, feathery trifles,)

And then, with a smirk that I think rather glib,
Sigh after some monster that left with the Rifles.

She vows I'm a miracle walking with men —
(Ugh! I swallow it all with a groan and a cough),

For I know that most women are comical, when
Their nightcaps are on and the visitors off !

Ay, rattle ahead and prattle away,

But, in sepulchred thought, I brood over another;
We parted, alas ! about nine months today,

And we never must meet again — somehow or other.

They tell me, poor bird, it is painful to see
How you've changed, since we rode in the warm
summer weather;

And oh, if I felt you were pining for me,
I'd hew me a path that would bring us together.

[73]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

In your solitude still, do you sing the old songs?

O, the "Long Weary Day!" shall it cease for us
never?
But here, in the ruck of the sumptuous throngs,

Tour name in my lone heart is sacred forever !

Ah me ! I am chill, for 'tis fearful to sit
By the Cobra, when languished with tenderer
matters —

Ha ! I see that my secret is guessed — every bit —
For she's nibbling her lip, and the fan is in tatters.

Beautiful — yes ! but I shall not succumb,
Though wifeless from Beersheba even to Dan ;

Heigho ! if my heart were but under her thumb,
She'd crumple it, too, like the innocent fan!

[74]

WHY THE ROBIN'S BREAST IS RED

The Saviour, bowed beneath his cross,

Clomb up the dreary Mil,
While from the agonizing wreath

Ran many a crimson rill.
The brawny Roman thrust him on

With unrelenting hand —
Till, staggering slowly 'mid the crowd,

He fell upon the sand.

A little bird that warbled near,

That memorable day,
Flitted around and strove to wrench

One single thorn away ;
The cruel spike impaled his breast,

And thus 'tis sweetly said,
The Robin wears his silver vest

In panoplies of red.

Ah Jesu ! Jesu ! Son of Man !

My dolour and my sighs
Reveal the lesson taught by this

Winged Ishmael of the skies.
I, in the palace of delight,

Or caverns of despair,
Have plucked no thorns from Thy dear brow,

But planted thousands there!

[75]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

ADIEU

Adieu! adieu!

Bright eye of blue,
With ebbless oceans in thy hue;

Unloved, unblest,

I can not rest,
While thou art waving to the West.

His prayer surceased,

The Golden Priest
Hath chanted Masses in the East,

And soon will skim

The river's rim,
To sing his dying vesper hymn.

I think— I think

If I could sink
Beyond this juggling orbit's brink,

That I might drown

The Demon's frown,
Where suns and satellites go down.

[76]

ADIEU

Farewell ! farewell !

My bonnie belle,
I dungeon what I cannot qnell ;

Distraction's slave,

I weep and rave,
While prophets warn me from the grave.

A wretch abhorred,

I broke my sword
Upon the buckler of the Lord ;

I feel the shock,

Upon my rock,
While the foul condors 'round me flock.

Good-bye! good-bye!

I can not die
Beneath thy sacramental eye ;

When gulf and knoll

Atween us roll,
Wilt thou be patient then, my soul?

Adieu! adieu!

Sad eye of blue;
I've wrecked my life within thy hue.

I grieve, I grieve,

And yet I live
To know the future God may give.

[77]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

I flee the plain,

Accurst by Gain,
To grasp my battle-ax again;

And in the sign

Of Bread and Wine
God the Consoler ! I am Thine !

SILVER SPRING

When the Lord of Light revealed
The flashing radiance of His shield,
Glorifying wave and field;
When he felt he must expire,
Then His orbs with blazing ire
Shot their dying shafts of fire;
When the palpitating breeze
Smote the gitterns of the trees,
Like the shout of distant seas ;
When the jeweled birds that sing
Moved on rainbow-tinted wing,
I beheld thy face of splendor blushing with the wild
and tender,
Silver Spring!

[78]

SILVER SPRING

Virgin ! when the shadows roll
To the ice-embattled pole,
From thy sweet, pellucid soul —
Each angelic host on high
Sees in that cerulian eye
Blossom-beauties of the sky.
Blessed spirits! ye who dwell
Far beyond the ether swell,
How ye anthem, "It is well ! "
On thy bosom let me seem
Kerneled in a Bagdad dream,
Rocked to slumber by a Seraph over thy celestial
stream!

On a fairy, pensive pinion
Gloat I o'er thy deep dominion,
Shaming e'en the Augustinian ;
Wonders rushing thicker — faster!
Here a porphyry pilaster,
Here a temple alabaster;
And the sunshine as it falls
Splinters on quintillion halls,
And a miracle of walls !
Now thy bannerets are beaming —
Now with mystic music gleaming
O'er a city — gem-girt city — in a gush of dervish
dreaming!

[79]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Here, ah here, the Indian maiden,
When with love and languor laden,
Sought thee, as the cells of Adenn ;
With a world of gentle guesses,
In thy flood her floating tresses
Poured their cascade of caresses!
Here her hero from the rattle
Of the crimson blows of battle,
Slept beneath her soothing prattle —
Slept — but, ere the sun's decline,
Like the lightning-riven pine,
And his heart's blood, Silver Billow, swept its throb-
bings into thine.

When the sad and solemn moon
Muses o'er the lone lagoon,
And laughs the melancholy loon,
When the crooning winter breeze,
Hapless from the Hebrides,
Chafes the dead cathedral trees;
'Mid the vultures muffled wails,
Stifled by the panther hails
Shuddering up palmetto trails;
When the globe is wrought in sleep,
When the gnomes their vigils keep
By the mountain and the deep —
I can fancy phantom things,
On their thunder-tarnished wings,
Soaring with a fallen grandeur over the enchanted
springs! [80]

QUEEN OF THE WAX DOLLS

Dusky plume and siroc frown,
Lo the night comes trampling down
O'er thy palaces and town !
Lo! a legion like the stars,
Speeding from their crystal cars,
Leap beyond the sable bars;
How they glittered as they rolFd!
How thy streets are stormed with gold!
Undine! Undine! thou art princess of the parables
of old!

TO THE QUEEN OP THE WAX DOLLS

'Twas in the old church yard I told you all,

Beneath the Norway pine;
There, by your mother's grave, I thought to call

That poor lost mother mine.

I saw you bend above an orphan child

To kiss its winsome face;
This woman, quoth I, is all undeflled,

A miracle of grace.

[81]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

The world could never guess your riddle quite,

Nor shake your soft repose;
The same meek orbs that shone upon the night,
Were stars when morning rose.

Oh hypocrite! your cool, Antarctic sighs

Make memory an eclipse;
I feel the serpent from those poisoned eyes

Browsing upon my lips.

You changed. You stumbled from the better
path;
You robed your vows on biers;
And now my lexicon of love and wrath
Is syllabled with tears.

You changed! Your eyes are purple-lidded
beads,

Your hair a coil of flax,
And the cold splendor of your shape recedes

Into a mould of wax!

0, wormwood ! that a thing of wax and wire
Could make me love it so;

1, with a Hecla-heart and nerve of fire,
Gasping amid that snow.

[82]

QUEEN OP THE WAX DOLLS

And now, repenting, yon would be my wife,
Would pawn your troth to we —
Poor Doll ! beyond the icebergs of your life
There throbs no open sea!

I sought it once, and lo ! my former self

Is shipwrecked in the quest.
See the impassioned Franklin, with his pelf,

Dead on your gelid breast.

You scream — 'tis but a delicate doll's cry —

A trick, as all perceive it;
They say you're stuffed with sawdust — though a
lie,

A skeptic might believe it!

STONE APPLES

'Mid the shimmer of lamps and the redowa's dash,
Where the trumpet the thiek-tongued song salutes-

'Mid the flutter of gauze and the diamond's flash,
'Mid the masquerade of flutes !

[83]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

The boreal wind outside was keen,

And the heavens had frosty eyes that night ;
Within was the realm of a tropic queen,

Auroral with delight.

Amiddle the foam of the frescoed ships
On the pictured walls were the genii grim ;

And the languid lotus, with chaliced lips,
Was nectared to the brim.

Here bevies of blondes with hyacinth hair,
Flirt their silver arms 'mid the fervid dance ;

And the dusk-eyed brunette wreathes her snare
Through the sensuous advance.

The vivid, voluptuous waltz is done,
But the beaux are bijsy as they can be ;

The buzzing butterflies round the sun
Of a dazzling coterie.

But I, in the wavering whirl of mirth
Cast gloom and glamour far and wide;

To me 'twas the emptiness of earth —
The feast of the Barmecide.

[84]

STONE APPLES

And there in a niche by the colonnade,
Alone with the crisp and biting breeze,

I counted the curves by the river made.
And the grenadier-like trees.

And I vow that the cold and dark to me
Were better than melody, wit and wine,

For I saw, what never on earth should be,
Under the chill moonshine.

I saw by the sinewy river side
A willowy cottage, neat and white,

Where the bayou ripples prank and glide
To the clover aleft and right.

And a damsel, shaming the damsels here,
With nought of their satin and silk and pearls,

She — in a modest, maidenly sphere,
They — like the Gwazee girls !

Oh, how I worshipped you then and there,
The mother of God alone can tell —

With the bandeau dimming your starry hair,
And your hand in mine, Estelle!

[86]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Lo! the boreal wind blew warm and soft,
And the heavens had gentle eyes for all —

I looked, with a gallant smile, aloft,
And my spirit had no gall.

My steps were turned to the ball again,
With an arching front and a springy tread-

"Oh, she is an angel to this train ;
She is better than any/' I said.

And better is she, sweet child, away
In that willowy cottage, neat and white,

For she is the darlingest bird of day,
But these are the birds of night.

The dear God nestles her eyes in sleep,
And her visions are beautiful and serene;

The dawn has nothing for her to weep,
With a flushed, disheveled mien.

And I swear, as I murmured things like these,
And even the revelry seemed but good,

I saw, 'mid its giddiest ecstacies,
My Violet of the Wood.

[8«]

STONE APPLES

Not in the garb of the olden days,

But tricked with a tinselry of toys —

And she frowned as she met my eager gaze,
And she smiled o'er the foppish joys.

And she, high and haughtily, brushed me by,
To harvest the spoils of her fevered bliss —

To drink in the honeyed laugh and lie,
The honeyed serpent's hiss.

Yes ! the boreal wind cut keen and bleak,
And the heavens had frosty eyes once more,

For the apples I plucked from the Venus-cheek
Were petrified to the core!

And I sighed to my heart: "My love is rash,
Since these are the false and blasting fruits;

I thrust it back 'mid the diamond's flash,
'Mid the masquerade of flutes" !

[87]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

ALTHEE

Gould tongue define

In warbling line
The music of this heart of mine,

'Twould sing, today,

A roundelay,
For thee, ma belle Creole Althee!

But words are weak,

When words would speak,
The ripeness of thy satin cheek,

Or pearl that tips

With dewy sips
The arches of those blushing lips.

The floods of lace

That flirt and race
In eddying ripples 'round thy face,

Have framed, I ween,

In magic mien,
The daintiest image ever seen.

[88]

ALTHEE

Ah, sweet Althee!

Around thee play
The plumed, and crystal tribes of May;

And in those eyes

Float, flash, and rise
Gay atmosphere of orient guise.

The eyes — the eyes!

The planet eyes
Fresh from their dreams of Paradise!

My spirit sees,

But never flees
Their sorcery of sorceries.

Truth, Grace, and Love

From worlds above-
Hints of the Pure and Holy Dove—

Divinely bright,

These gems of sight
Are throned upon their globes of light.

Thus heaven-beguiled,

Beloved child,
Have all the cherubs on thee smiled;

Let joys depart

Still, sweet, thou art
Voiced in the virgin's sacred heart.

[89]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Madonna! fold

Her heart of gold
In thy dear arms, when it is cold;

Madonna! sing

This bird of Spring
To sleep beneath thy velvet wing!

Athwart my brain

A shadowy rain
Sobs forth this desolate refrain :

JJhy star is sped,

Thy sunshine fled,
Thy dream is bosomed toith the dead!

Ay! dim — dim — dim —

My senses swim
Down by the lordly river's brim ;

All pagan-eyed,

I thrust my pride
Out on the mad and stalwart tide.

And will it roll

To some fair goal,
Quaffing elixirs of the soul —

Or witheringly

Grope out to sea
And drift— but will it drift to thee?

[90]

ISIS

My friend, the young artist, is clever and kind,
With a broad Roman forehead and deep German
heart;

And though but a tyro, I cannot be blind
To his whimsical skill and his exquisite art

I laugh at his quips, as I lounge in his room,

Where we gin the grum world with its duns and
its debts,

Till spun by philosophy out of the gloom,
And Calle Obispo's divine cigarettes.

Anon we play chess, with the odds of a pawn,
On an arabesque baize full of goblins and Circes;

You should see how he strangles a masculine yawn
As I gasp out my last little spasm of verses.

'Tis the game of my life, this game of the squares,
For my Queen of White Chessmen is coy as the
stars ;

When a bishop, like Dunstan, snakes up unawares
And soon there is nothing but death — or cigars !

[91]

POEMS OP JAMES RYDER RANDALL

Cotillions of smoke swirl the curtains and walls
By a swart old Tertullian, all gnarled and knotty;

And then in quadrilles, as it stifles and crawls
On a muscular torso by Buonarotti.

Here Leviathan gores through a shock of harpoons —
There, Lazarus mumbles his crust on the sod —

Afar, in this carnival dance of cartoons,
Hypatia glares on the crucified God !

Here, Scanderberg gashes the Ottomite van —
There, the dulcimer damsel of Kubla is heard-

Hard by, a neat sketch of the crafty old man
We have sent to inveigle Napoleon the Third.

There are foils on the arras and shields on the stair,
While an arquebuse bosses the lank balustrade;

And trailing just over that worm-eaten chair
Is a woman's white dress with its bodice and braid.

The visions of youth are the wizards of thought,
No matter how gusty, no matter how good ;

How many have married the woman they sought-
How seldom we marry the woman we should !

[92]

ISIS

I sprang from the couch, till I stood by the side
Of my friend, as he gazed at the bodice and dress ;

"This way," whispered he, "and I'll show you a bride
Not to wed but to worship — to sing not to bless."

Dear God ! as the picture the painter unsealed,
The curtain was shrivelled away to a scroll —

I felt that an Isis of Eld was revealed,
That Isis I veiled in the crypt of my soul !

Those pure melting eyes float that mystical gauze,
Which prophecy weaves on the sight and the hair

Of those that peer down the death-vistas and pause
O'er the slab and the violets waiting them there.

There's a fountain of tears by the fountain of mirth,
As twilights are thin 'twixt an old and new leaven ;

And if not a paladin hero of earth
She could make me a passionate pilgrim of heaven.

Ah, the glove's on the mantel, the rose in the glass,
The name in the Bible upon the blank page,

And the very same rosary fingered at mass
Coiled by the canary bird — dead in its cage.

[93]

POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL

O beautiful child of a beautiful morn !

There's a beautiful bodice begemming thy breast,
But it speaks of the cerement, that Seraphs have
worn,

And it tells of a nightingale slain in its nest.

And I gaze, and I gaze, and I gaze, 'till the moon,
With its irised aureola, sleeps on her brow —

My Isis ! thy image departed too soon,
For I gaze and I gaze on thy vacancy now.

beautiful child of a beautiful day !

There's a beautiful song on thy Sibylline lip;
But it sings of the breaker that boils in the bay,
And it dirges the doom of a desolate ship.

Lost— lost, long ago ! and she dreams o'er the sea,
Where the rude Saxon daisies above her have
blown;

1 know that the angels are angry with me,

For the woman is dead that my spirit hath known!

New Orleans, 1861.

[94]

COLONEL JAMES RYDER RANDALL

(In 1882)

P?HE NEW YORK I

Ipobucubrary)

FAB OUT AT SEA

Far out at sea ! far out at sea !

The winged wind warbles melody;
The billows fringe their curls of foam,

And tremble back with thoughts of home ;
I stream my soul on every crest

That gambles onward to the west —
Tis freighted, love, with hope and thee.